Since the stroke of midnight on Friday night, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been shut down because Republicans in the House are demanding that airline employee’s union rights be curtailed.

One side effect of the shut down is a loss of roughly $200 million dollars per week in revenue for the federal government because ticket taxes aren’t being collected. Yet despite this temporary elimination of taxes, costs to consumers have remained the same. Imagine that.

By Saturday night, nearly all the major U.S. airlines had raised fares to offset taxes that expired the night before.

That means instead of passing along the savings, the airlines are pocketing the money while customers pay the same amount as before.

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